Contour pillow



July 28, 1959 M. J. REED 2,896,227

CONTOUR PILLOW Filed Aug. l1. 1954 INVENTOR /Kauri Jeed ATTORNEYS UnitedStates This invention relates to a contoured pillow designed especiallyfor improving the sleeping habits and promoting the comfort of users.

The conventional pillow, as known and employed by the majority ofpeople, consists essentially of a casing lled with some soft, resilientmaterial, for example, feathers or foam rubber, and usually takes theform of a rectangular structure. When an individual places his head onsuch a pillow, it deforms into random shapes but does not contour itselfto the shape of the users head, neck and shoulders and furnish supportfor these parts.

When an individual, by way of example, lies in a horizontal position onhis back not on a pillow, the back of the head is generally at a muchlower elevation than the back of his neck. If he lies on a pillow of theconventional type as described above, it will not afford the elevatedsupport for the back of the neck needed, as no provision is made withpillows of the conventional type for taking into consideration theconfiguration of the upper portions of the human body. Hence, theindividual, in place of lying in a horizontal plane, or at leastsubstantially so, is compelled to assume unnatural positions withrespect to his head, neck and shoulder regions. Although this is notrealized to any large extent, since the effects are usually gradual, theuse of a conventional pillow for sleeping is concededly uncomfortableand has been known in some instances to be the cause of loss of sleep.As a second consideration, the ears of an individual, since they projectoutwardly from the head portion of his body, are frequently a cause fordiscomfort in the adaptation of a conventional type pillow to the headespecially when the individual is sleeping on his side.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a novelstructure for a pillow which is, speciiically designed to accommodate ahuman being and is particularly adapted to conform to the generalconguration of a persons body from the shoulders up, rather than thepast practice of attempting to conform an individual to a xed designpillow. One of the main advantages of the pillow of this inventionresides in its adaptability to various shoulder-neck-head profiles. Itwill be appreciated that these profiles vary widely in human beings frombeing very straight to quite curvy in a round shouldered individual. Forall normal human beings, however, the prole curves in at the neck.Consequently, the neck should be supported higher than the head anelevation depending upon the individual using the pillow. The pillow ofthe present invention provides the requisite adaptability in thisrespect.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a contourpillow which can be readily and economically produced at a minimum ofcost and which will function in use to promote better sleeping habits.

Other objects and advantages of the present invention will becomereadily apparent from the following descripiii;

time t* 2,895,227 Patented July 28, 1959 tion when taken in conjunctionwith the drawings, in which:

Figure 1 is a view in plan partly broken away of the novel pillow of thepresent invention;

Figure 2 is a View in section of Figure 1 taken along line 2-2;

Figure 3 is a `View in section of Figure l taken along line 3 3; and

Figure 4 is a fragmentary view of the connecting lug.

Referring now to the drawings in detail, there will be seen thepreferred embodiment of the pillow of the present invention consistingof a cylindrical front core i() and a hexadral elongated rear core llrectangular in cross section. Each core is hollow, pneumatic, andresilient whereby each can be inflated with a gas such as air to anyextent desired. For this purpose each core is provided with suitablevalve 12. Core 10 when inated is greater in diameter than the inflatedthickness of core 11 and thus the top of core 10 is above the uppersurface of core 11 as will be evident from Figure 3. The upper and lowerwalls of core 11 are spot heat sealed as indicated by numerals 13 andgussets 14 extending transversely of core 11 are fixed, cemented, orotherwise joined to the inside surfaces of the top and bottom Walls witheach terminating spaced from the side walls of the core.

The core 10 is placed beside core 11 so that the axis of core 10 isparallel to the long axis of core 11. A lug 15 characterized by a flatplate attached at one end to an end wall of core 11 projects beyond thecore 11 and denes a hole 16 at its other end adapted to fit over thevalve of core 10 to lock the cores together. A similar lug 17 has oneend attached to the opposite end wall of core 11 and projects beyond.The projected end of lug 17 is arranged with the female half 18 of asnap fastener with the male half 19 being mounted on the end wall ofcore 10 for cooperation therewith to lock this end of the corestogether.

When joined in this fashion, the cores are wrapped with about fourlayers of a cushioning material 21 being preferably cotton flannel witha Iweight of 4.80 yards to the pound in a 27 inch width. Although othercushioning materials could be used, such as felt or wool, cotton has theadvantage of being more acceptable from an allergy standpoint.

The pillow of the present invention, as above described, is designed tofit human beings in general yand is adjustable to lit one human [beingin particular. Because core 10 extends higher than Core 11, there is adepression or declivity between the cores in the area identified lby thenumeral 20 (see Figure 3). modates the ear of the person when sleepingon his side and thus the pillow is comfortable to a side sleeper.Further, the compound nature of the pillow provides for individualadjustment of the neck supporting element (core 10) and head supportingelement (core 11) by controlling the degree of iniiation of the cores.It is a still further advantage that the relative height of the cores 10and 11 can be adjusted as desired.

In use, the pillow of the present invention can be inated to contour tothe shape of the shoulder, neck and head regions of the individualemploying same, furnishing full support for al1 parts of the individualsbody in these regions. The support, as will be noted, is resilient,while at the same time being rm in all respects.

Although the present invention has been shown and described withreference to a specific embodiment, nevertheless, various changes andmodifications obvious to one skilled in the art are deemed to Ibe withinthe spirit, scope and contemplation of the present invention.

This depression accom- What is claimed is:

A pillow comprising a rst inflatable core of substantially cylindricaldesign, a second inflatable core of rectangular cross-section, said rstcore when fully intlated extending to a height above ,said second corewhen fully inflated, valve means for each of said cores, means tomaintain said cores ,adjacent to one another when .each of said cores isseparately supported `by a substantially flat surface, said meanscomprisingat least two `perforated plate means each integrally aixed toone of said `cores and engaging the other of said lcores to accuratelymaintain the space relationship of said cores, one of said `plate meansresiliently engaging one of said valve means, whereby the degree ofintlation and the height of each `of said cores can be4individually'cont-rolled as -well as the difference in the heightsthereof.

References Cited in the le of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS

